Gianni Merlo has been re-elected as President of the International Sports Press Association (AIPS) for a fifth term at the AIPS Congress in Rome.
The Italian will be working closely with EsatYilmaet of Turkey and Jura Ozmec of Croatia again after both officials were re-elected unopposed to the roles of first vice-president and treasurer respectively.
ZsuzsaCsisztu of Hungary and Evelyn Watta of Kenya have been voted to the vice-president roles, meaning two women hold the positions for the first time in the body’s history.
IoannisDaras of Greece and Mohammed Hiji of Qatar complete the set of four vice-presidents by retaining their positions.
Csisztu, Watta, Daras and Hiji received absolute majorities of 96, 94, 93 and 89 votes respectively while Mohamed Ould El Hassan of Mauritania, the fifth candidate, acquired 36 votes.
El Hassan dropped out of the race to join the Executive Committee meaning the 13 other candidates were elected by acclamation.
The body consists of Pakistan’s Malik Amjad Aziz, Saudi Arabia’s Adel Al Zahrani, China’s Gao Chao, Brazil’s Vicente Dattoli, Romania’s Emanuel Fantaneanu and Austria’s Josef Langer.
Morad Moutaouakkil of Morocco, Ernesto Ortiz of Uruguay, Juan Antonio Prieto of Spain, AhmadiSeyedAbdolhamid of Iran, Hiroshi Takeuchi of Japan, Marc Ventolluiac of France, and Jose Zidar of Slovenia are the other members.
Merlo, 75, who writes for the newspaper La Gazettadello Sport is hopeful that a “new era” will begin for journalism following the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We need to stay united and build bridges.
“We are completely independent from the rest of the world, and I hope this is the beginning of a new era, to study something new about the next generation of journalists.
“Our profession is changing, but the principles are not, being honest, working properly.
“The only thing that changes are the tools to achieve our goals.
“We have to continue this process of innovation.”
The 2023 AIPS Congress is due to be held in Seoul, South Korea. –Insidethegames.biz
